“Cream custard indeed!  And where’s the cream to come from?  Fish it up in the river, maybe?”

Oline hastens to make peace.  “Inger, Lord bless you, child, don’t speak of such a thing.  Not a word of cream nor custard either—­an old creature like me that does but idle about from house to neighbour...!”

Isak sits for a while, then up, and saying suddenly:  “Here am I doing nothing middle of the day, and stones to fetch and carry for that wall of mine!”

“Ay, a wall like that’ll need a mighty lot of stone, to be sure.”

“Stone?” says Isak.  “Tis like as if there’d never be enough.”

When Isak is gone, the two womenfolk get on nicely together for a while; they sit for hours talking of this and that.  In the evening, Oline must go out and see how their live stock has grown:  cows, a bull, two calves, and a swarm of sheep and goats.  “I don’t know where it’ll ever end,” says Oline, with her eyes turned heavenwards.

And Oline stays the night.

Next morning she goes off again.  Once more she has a bundle of something with her.  Isak is working in the quarry, and she goes another way round, so that he shall not see.

Two hours later, Oline comes back again, steps into the house, and asks at once:  “Where is Isak?”

Inger is washing up.  Oline should have passed by the quarry where Isak was at work, and the children with him; Inger at once guesses something wrong.

“Isak?  What d’you want with him?”

“Want with him?—­why, nothing.  Only I didn’t see him to say good-bye.”

Silence.  Oline sits down on a bench without being asked, drops down as if her legs refuse to carry her.  Her manner is intended to show that something serious is the matter; she is overcome.

Inger can control herself no longer.  Her face is all terror and fury as she says: 

“I saw what you sent me by Os-Anders.  Ay, ’twas a nice thing to send!”

“Why ... what...?”

“That hare.”

“What do you mean?” asks Oline in a strangely gentle voice.

“Ah, don’t deny it!” cries Inger, her eyes wild.  “I’ll break your face in with this ladle here—­see that!”

Struck her?  Ay, she did so.  Oline took the first blow without falling, and only cried out:  “Mind what you’re doing, woman!  I know what I know about you and your doings!” Inger strikes again, gets Oline down to the floor, falls on her there, and thrusts her knees into her.

“D’you mean to murder me?” asks Oline.  The terrible woman with the hare-lip was kneeling on her, a great strong creature armed with a huge wooden ladle, heavy as a club.  Oline was bruised already, and bleeding, but still sullenly refusing to cry out.  “So you’re trying to murder me too!”

“Ay, kill you,” says Inger, striking again.  “There!  I’ll see you dead before I’ve done with you.”  She was certain of it now.  Oline knew her secret; nothing mattered now.  “I’ll spoil your beastly face.”